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A proposed Australian law could change the Internet as we know it and harm American companies. The proposal would require search engines to pay publishers for linking to news stories that appear in search results, and to enter arbitration if they can’t agree on terms. A thread:
The Trump admin opposed the idea and the Biden admin seems likely to do the same. The Internet lives on free hyperlinks. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jan/20/australias-proposed-media-code-could-break-the-world-wide-web-says-the-man-who-invented-it
Search engines and publishers can agree on terms, or not, as they see fit. Publishers can protect content behind paywalls; search engines can exclude certain sites, and sites can bar search engines from crawling them. That’s the free market.
The proposal is pure protectionism. In effect, Australia wants to force a transfer of money from American tech companies to domestic publishers. This could set a bad global precedent, as both the Trump and Biden admins seem to recognize.
It’s also bad economics. As is, search platforms make little or no money on news searches, even as they drive traffic and revenue to publishers’ websites. How are publishers hurt by getting more traffic from links on other sites?
It makes Australia an outlier, to the left of France. French companies have agreed with Google on principles to negotiate compensation with French publishers. Why can’t Australian companies also negotiate themselves?
Let’s hope that the Biden admin continues to stand up for American companies and that Australia – one of our best friends in the world – steps back from the path of protectionism.
